Come What May
by beautyofsorrow
Summary: What if the duplicate crew of Voyager managed to launch their beacon before they fell apart? Details a possible story regarding B'Elanna's discoveries.
1. Rising Hopes

**Disclaimer:** I do not own nor claim to own these characters, places, or events. Nor do I wish to make any sort of monetary profit from the work below. Reviews are sufficient. And enthusiastically welcomed.

**Author's Note:** Based on the season 5 episode "Course: Oblivion" (the sequel to season 4's "Demon"), this fic stemmed from a desire for a different ending. I couldn't help wondering how B'Elanna would react to the knowledge that her duplicate married Tom.

* * *

><p><span>Come What May<span>  
>by Dax's10thHost<p>

Captain Kathryn Janeway stared at the images on the main viewscreen, trying to make sense of the slowly, but steadily, blurring shapes that constituted the remains of a ship they'd detected only hours before. The scientist in her recognized Tuvok and Harry's tag-team report composed of multi-syllabic compounds forming the fast-fading silvery debris; but she, as Kathryn Janeway, couldn't fathom how a wrecked ship could simply vanish.

Because that was exactly what she was witnessing.

It was just…melting. Stringing into nothingness across the ebony backdrop of space.

"Mr. Kim…?" Her words were barely more than a slur of sound, lethargic with shock and not a little disbelief.

"No sign of survivors, Captain. It's just…melting."

"I believe the proper term would be _demolecularizing_, Ensign. Something does not simply 'melt' in a vacuum."

Tuvok's voice was its usual, slightly stilted cadence, but Janeway caught the touch of amazement coloring his voice. Strangely, it made her feel better that even her unflappable Vulcan chief of security found this occurrence too astonishing to conceal.

Janeway blinked, but it was a dull, half-hearted movement, her only physical acknowledgement of her officers' exchange. A long moment passed, in which the bridge crew remained utterly silent, either shocked speechless or, for the more empathetic, grieved with the scale of such loss.

Finally, Janeway found her voice and turned toward Chakotay. Regardless the circumstances, she was the captain—a Starfleet captain, no less—and there were regulations to follow. She opened her mouth to utter the first of many such rules. "Note in ship's log—"

"Wait—Captain, I think I found something." It was Harry, and he sounded—excited? Hope fluttered in her breast, even as she tried to contain it.

"What is it, Mr. Kim?"

"I'm not certain, but it looks like the remains of a subspace beacon. I'm picking up fragments of sensor logs, star charts…and what may be personal logs, but I can't be sure."

"Options?"

"It's sustained heavy damage, but I think we could get a transporter lock on it, once the debris has…cleared away. It's producing some sort of high-frequency interference as it is; that's probably why I can't get clear readings on what survived the wreckage."

Janeway nodded. "As soon as that debris has cleared, I want that beacon brought aboard immediately. Have it beamed directly to science lab one. Tell Seven it's top priority—I want to know just how much of that information is salvageable." She rose. "That way we can put these people to rest in our logs with some dignity."

As she entered the private of her ready room, hope surged unhindered through Janeway's veins, hope that maybe the crew of the mystery ship hadn't died after all. Maybe they'd managed to preserve some of their memories and experiences, enough to keep themselves alive in the minds and hearts of those who discovered the remnants of their beacon.

Their time capsule.


	2. Your Personal Logs

Chief Engineer B'Elanna Torres was having a lousy day. A really lousy day. In fact, it was so lousy that she'd checked the calendar to see if somehow it was the Day of Honor.

It wasn't. And that made her all the more irritated, because she had nothing and no one to blame save her rotten Klingon luck.

So far, the plasma injectors had malfunctioned, sent a stream of super-heated plasma shooting across Engineering, caused significant damage to primary workstations, and severely injured one of her people (making them short-handed due to understaffing issues). Then, the port nacelle had suddenly decided to "spring a leak," as Tom put in his old-fashioned nautical lingo. Not even five minutes into assessing the nacelle damage, the sonic showers on decks 7-9 had gone on the fritz, emitting a cacophony that rivaled Klingon opera in its assault on one's nerves.

And all of that before lunch.

Now, B'Elanna was warily making her way to the Mess Hall, wondering what else could possibly go wrong.

She got her answer just as she sat down to her meal.

_::Seven of Nine to Lieutenant Torres.::_

B'Elanna slapped her combadge and suppressed a growl. "Torres here. What do you want, Seven?"

_::Please report to science lab one. I have information that requires your attention.::_

"It can't wait half an hour?"

_::Captain Janeway said this assignment is of the utmost importance, and to make it "top priority." I suggest you come quickly, or I will take it to her first.::_

B'Elanna made a face. Take it to her first? What was Seven talking about? It almost sounded like a threat. Seven wasn't one to make threats. "On my way," she sighed, glancing longingly at her food. It actually looked edible, today. And Neelix had made a pot of her favorite coffee. Oh well. At least she could take the coffee with her. _Pseudo-coffee_, she corrected herself.

"Is anything wrong, B'Elanna? You look upset."

She looked up to see Neelix standing over her, fingers steepled, flamboyant apron blaring, and spotted brow wrinkled in concern. "Actually, nothing's wrong. At least, I don't think. It's just that I can't eat right now. Do you think you could keep this warm for me? Seven's got something for me to look at in the science lab, and apparently it can't wait."

"Certainly!" the concern vanished into the more comfortable smile. "I'd be happy to."

"I'm not sure when I'll be back," B'Elanna warned, rising.

"Not a problem."

B'Elanna flashed the Talaxian a grateful smile. "Thanks, Neelix. You're fantastic." With that, she headed for the doors, still hoping to escape Seven's comments on her inefficient nature.

It didn't take her long to reach the science lab. Stepping into the room, she glanced about, trying to determine what Seven wanted her to see. "Hello? Anybody home? Seven?"

"I am here, Lieutenant." Seven's firm, rather deep voice sounded from the adjoining room, and B'Elanna quickly made her way there.

"All right, I'm here. What was so important that you had to pull me away from lunch? And please don't tell me it's bad news, because I'll break something if you do."

"I assure you that this matter is of significance to you, Lieutenant. You need not worry that your prolonged hunger is in vain. As for the news being 'good' or 'bad'—" Seven arched her brow, "—I will leave that to you to decide. See for yourself."

The tall, fair-haired woman stepped aside from her console and indicated its displays in her customary way, without flourish. She also managed to keep her expression neutral, thus giving B'Elanna no clue as to what the console held.

Sighing through her nose, B'Elanna stepped forward and dropped her arms to her sides.

"What am I looking at?"

"Remnants of the subspace beacon we salvaged from the wreckage of an unidentified vessel found late last night, just before the gamma shift went on duty. The wreckage was of a curious nature, in that it—"

"—melted before our very eyes. I already knew about this, Seven. There was a staff briefing this morning." _And if there hadn't been, the _Voyager_ grapevine could have told me even faster._ B'Elanna's stomachs loudly protested their lack of nourishment. She shifted her weight. "Bottom line: What'm I looking at?"

Again, Seven arched her eyebrow—or, rather, her optical implant—clasped her hands behind her back, and pressed her lips into a thin line. B'Elanna recognized the body language as a sign of Seven's annoyance, but didn't really care at the moment.

"Your personal logs."

"My _what_?" B'Elanna exclaimed, hunger suddenly forgotten. "What the—"

Seven let her rant for a full minute before interrupting.

"It may please you to know, Lieutenant, that these are not your personal logs, so to speak. That is, a B'Elanna Torres did write these logs, but it was not you."

"I'd really appreciate it if you'd make some sense. And explain why you've been reading my personal logs." B'Elanna added with a near-snarl. Startled, she attempted to calm her temper. _This really has been a lousy day._

"You demanded that I state the crux of the matter prior to my explanation of how it came about. Naturally, you are confused. And, given your…volatile nature—"

"I didn't skip lunch to hear a recitation of my own psychological profile, Seven. Why are you reading my—B'Elanna's—whosever's—personal logs? What have they got to do with the dissolving ship?"

"Captain Janeway assigned me to the task of deducing who the owners of this beacon were and, if possible, what caused their ship to demolecularize. Salvaging any pertinent information surviving the wreckage would naturally increase the efficiency of my work."

"So you considered my personal logs to be _pertinent_? And how the heck can they be _my_ personal logs when I didn't even write them?"

"I…apologize for any intrusion on your privacy, if that is indeed what it is. However, your logs were the least-damaged files, aside from star charts nearly identical to our own. I had no choice but to read them in hopes of forming a hypothesis regarding the crew's demise."

"And were they _helpful_ to you?" B'Elanna spat, not sure at all what to think. Or feel. There was another B'Elanna Torres out there? Were they exactly the same? If so…Seven reading her personal logs? B'Elanna suppressed a shudder, as well as a wild punch.

"They were." There was no regret or hesitation in the former Borg's voice. _Count on Seven to be painfully honest _B'Elanna thought_._ "I have constructed a possible answer to the Captain's question; the computer is running a diagnostic on the remaining files to determine whether my answer is plausible or not."

B'Elanna waited expectantly. "Well? Aren't you going to share your hypothesis? Or do I have to come up with my own?"

"I believe that we encountered the remains of the bio-mimetic copies of the _Voyager_ ship and crew. That is the only plausible explanation to this conundrum."

It took B'Elanna only a second to reference the silver blood aliens and the events surrounding _Voyager_'s discovery of them.

In desperate need of deuterium, they'd landed a shuttle on a Y-class planet, more commonly, and appropriately, known as a Demon planet. Tom and Harry had volunteered for the mining operation, putting themselves at the worst kind of risk and giving B'Elanna no end of worries. The operation had gone nightmarishly wrong from the start.

B'Elanna shuddered, remembering the awful moments when Chakotay told her that Tom and Harry were missing, that _Voyager _couldn't raise them with its hails, and that Janeway was going to land the ship before sending out a rescue party. And how he'd refused to take her with them, because she was too close to the matter.

The only thing that had kept her sane during those long hours of searching was knowing that Chakotay had granted her request to take Seven of Nine down to the planet with them. Despite her…difficulty in working with Seven, B'Elanna had known that the former Borg was among the best, most level-headed of crewmembers aboard _Voyager_. If she couldn't find Tom and Harry, no one could.

Long story short, Tom and Harry had been okay, and _Voyager _had left the planet with an ample supply of deuterium. But not before they'd left behind copies of themselves, formed by the silver blood, a bio-mimetic life-form capable of copying anything it came into contact with.

Up until today, B'Elanna hadn't thought twice about the copy of herself. She'd just assumed, like everyone else on _Voyager_, that the silver blood life forms would remain on the Demon planet, happily ever after. End of story.

Apparently, that hadn't been the case. At least, if Seven's hypothesis was correct. And they usually were.

"So you're telling me that these copies of ourselves left the planet in search of…what?"

"If I am indeed correct, and we are not dealing with an alternate timeline—"

_Oh, please, no, not time travel. Anything but that._

"—then the crew of _Voyager_ were on their way home. To Earth."

"_Earth_? But their home was the Demon planet. I thought they couldn't live anywhere else."

"Apparently, they could not, given the state of their remains when we found them."

"Then why'd they leave?"

"That is what your personal logs aided me in determining. However, before we go any farther, I believe it would be best if I summoned the Captain."

"The Captain? Why? You're not going to let her read my logs, are you? _I_ haven't even read my logs." All this talk of duplicates was giving B'Elanna a headache. It didn't help that her hunger had returned in full force.

"She requested that I give her a full report on the contents of the subspace beacon. It would be more efficient if I told her the same time as I told you."

Sometimes B'Elanna wondered if Seven worshiped efficiency.

Seven tapped her combadge. "Seven of Nine to Janeway."

_::Janeway here. What is it, Seven?::_

"Captain. I have information regarding the subspace beacon. I believe it would be—"

_::I'll be right there. Janeway out.::_

B'Elanna raised her eyebrows. "Well. You weren't kidding, were you?"

Seven gave her a glance that B'Elanna had termed as the Tuvok look: annoyance and mild bewilderment. "I fail to see the purpose of your comment."

B'Elanna sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "Nothing. It's just that I've never heard Janeway respond so quickly with so little information."

Seven merely arched her eyebrow again.

They were quiet for several minutes, until the _hiss_ of the science lab's doors opening signaled Janeway's arrival.

"We're in here, Captain," B'Elanna called out. Janeway appeared soon after, looking almost excited.

"What've you got, Seven?"

B'Elanna listened as Seven briefed Janeway on her hypothesis. As she'd expected, the Captain's eager expression transformed into one of barely concealed awe, her normally steely gray-blue eyes softening into a far-away look that, for the senior staff, had become as familiar as _Voyager_'s corridors over the past five years.

A long silence followed Seven's monologue, wherein B'Elanna battled the urge to blurt out her many questions in a spectacular display of her Klingon impatience.

"Fascinating," Janeway finally whispered, invoking Tuvok's favorite word. "You're telling me that the bio-mimetic copies left the Demon planet in search of _Earth_? Just like us?"

"It appears that way. From what I have gathered reading the surviving fragments of Lieutenant Torres' copy's logs, all the crew's memories transferred from us—that is, the real _Voyager_s—to the copies."

B'Elanna's head snapped up. "How can you know that?"

Seven's blue eyes were direct and guileless. "In one log entry, you—or, rather, your copy—made reference to a party we attended in honor of Commander Chakotay's birthday. Given that the party took place before the Y-class incident, it is logical to conclude that when we were copied, our memory patterns were, as well."

Relief made B'Elanna's shoulders sag. So Seven hadn't read some embarrassing tidbit about her past, after all. She was safe. For now.

"How much of the logs survived?" That was Janeway, although B'Elanna had wanted to ask that question herself.

"Only Lieutenant Torres' are decipherable, and then only in small bits. The rest have decayed too much to salvage. Unfortunately, it appears that elements of the subspace beacon that were stable an hour ago have begun to demolecularize. Everything, including Lieutenant Torres' logs and the salvaged star charts, will be gone within the next five hours."

Janeway's enthusiasm drooped. "In that case, I want you to make copies of those star charts and store them for later examination. I'll assign Ensign Kim to assist you. B'Elanna, I want you to make a copy of the intact sections of your counterpart's logs. Then I want you to read them, keeping an eye out for anything of significance—alien encounters, new technology, subspace anomalies—anything. You both have orders to report what you find to me, but beyond that, I want this kept under wraps, understood? Seven, the same goes for Harry."

As one, Seven and B'Elanna nodded.

As Seven began her work, Janeway turned to B'Elanna, her eyes softening once more. When she spoke, her voice was low and sensitive, reducing its usual gravelly rasp to a husky timbre.

"B'Elanna, I don't want to intrude on your privacy—even if it's your copy's privacy. I'm trusting you to share with me the things that should be shared. Anything else is considered personal, and I won't cross that line unless there is sufficient—and I mean _sufficient_—reason that warrants it."

"Thank you, Captain. That means a lot," B'Elanna said softly.

Janeway nodded, once more assuming her captain's demeanor. "Well then, I'll leave you to your work."


	3. Night, Maquis

Padd in hand, dressed in comfortable civvies, and armed with a pot of Neelix's coffee substitute, B'Elanna settled onto the couch in her quarters. It was 2000, and she'd just finished sharing a late dinner with Tom. While she'd liked to have stayed longer with him and spent time catching up, maybe even braved Neelix's newest dessert concoction, B'Elanna knew that there were more pressing matters at hand. Janeway hadn't given her a deadline for the report on her counterpart's logs, but B'Elanna sensed that the Captain wanted it soon; and with Janeway, sooner was better.

So, while she'd officially gone off-duty two hours ago, B'Elanna decided to clock some overtime in hopes of knocking out the assignment.

She poured herself a cup of pseudo-coffee and thumbed to the padd's first page. As she absently scanned the screen's contents, she held the mug to her lips, letting the fragrant steam caress her nose and mouth. It smelled heavenly. True, it'd taken some getting used to—Janeway, ever the diplomat, called it an acquired taste—but, B'Elanna had to admit, Neelix made a mean cup of coffee. In fact, it almost rivaled _raktajino_, the only Klingon _anything_ B'Elanna openly embraced.

B'Elanna realized her mind was wandering, and reigned it in accordingly. _No daydreaming, Torres. It's better to knock this out in one solid punch._ She settled her eyes back on the page, finding the first line once more.

_Stardate 52—6.— Chief Engineer, B'Elan—rres, Personal Log_

"Ooh, boy. This's gonna be a long night," B'Elanna muttered. Her eyes darted down the page. About every other line contained a break in the wording, indicating the molecular degradation of the beacon's storage components. For B'Elanna, each dash indicated a _bat'leth_ blow to her patience. Not to mention her sanity.

She took a fortifying swallow of her drink, knowing that she'd need every last drop and more before her job was done. She took a deep breath and steeled her nerves.

_Here goes nothing._

* * *

><p>Three hours and twenty-four pieced-together entries later, B'Elanna stumbled into the mess hall, eyes bleary and fingers barely able to support the empty coffee pot's weight. The lights, mercifully, were dimmed, and the darkness accentuated the simulated glow of stars streaking past the viewports set in the opposite bulkhead. She fought the urge to curl up on one of the corner couches and succumb to sleep.<p>

The room appeared to be empty, but B'Elanna's ears, tired though they were, told her that someone was in the galley. Determined to replenish her coffee supply, B'Elanna dragged herself to the kitchen-area. As she rounded the corner, she caught sight of the other midnight insomniac.

"Harry," she said, too tired to sound surprised, pleased, or even neutral. _I have _got_ to get some sleep_, she thought. _I must look like—_

Harry spun around, narrowly missing an encounter with one of Neelix's dangling pots. "B'Elanna! Hey. I…didn't expect you to be here this late."

"Same here, Starfleet," B'Elanna grinned sleepily. "Nice pajamas."

Harry blanched and looked down at his stained tank and billowing black pants. Were those bare toes peeking out? "Oh, uh, yeah. Thanks," he mumbled, his face changing from white to red remarkably fast. "Like I said, I didn't expect anyone to be down here this late."

"I kinda like the look on you. Shows off your muscles," she teased, slowly becoming more alert. "Been putting in overtime in the gym?"

"Me? Nah," Harry laughed. He fumbled about the counter. B'Elanna smirked, seeing right through him.

"All right, who is she?"

"What?"

Was that panic in his voice? B'Elanna's grin turned wicked. "The girl. Who is she?"

"Wh-what is this? The Spanish Inquisition?"

"No, the Torres Inquisition. Now who is she? And don't pretend there isn't one."

"Honestly, B'Elanna, I don't know what you're talking about."

"Aw, fine. Be the spoilsport. I'll bet it's Ensign Farmer."

"B'Elanna."

"Fine, fine. I'll stop. For now," she laughed. "Neelix happen to leave any of his coffee brewing before he turned in?"

"Nah, I don't think so."

"Drat," B'Elanna growled. "Just my luck. I should've known; this day was certainly lousy enough." She slouched against the counter.

"Why are you looking for coffee this late?" Harry asked, rummaging through one of the lower cabinets.

"Why else? I'm dead on my feet and need something to keep me awake."

Harry's muffled words drifted up from the depths of the cabinet. "Why don't you just go to bed like normal people?" A clatter. He stood with a sigh. "That's it. I've been looking for some of his herbal whatchamacallit tea for half an hour, and I'm no closer to finding it than you are to getting your coffee."

"Sounds like a night for replicator rations."

A lopsided grin lit Harry's features. "Why not? I think I've got a few saved up. Enough to indulge myself, anyway."

They made their way to the bank of replicators set into the wall. "_Raktajino_, hot," B'Elanna ordered, and let the familiar swarming buzz greet her ears. When the cup had materialized, she closed her fingers around it eagerly. "Ahhh," she sighed, bringing it to her lips. "Smell that Klingon coffee."

Harry made a face. "Smells stronger than Tom's socks after an away mission." B'Elanna spluttered into her mug. "How can you stand to drink that stuff?"

Recovering, B'Elanna replied, "It's an acquired taste. And plenty of people like it. Coffee is an engineer's best friend. Well, next to a hyperspanner."

"Yeah? I've got nothing against coffee. But that stuff is lethal."

"To each his own," B'Elanna chimed, and then motioned to the replicator. "You gonna get something, or not?"

Harry stared at the slot in the wall. "What is there? I don't think Neelix has that tea programmed into the databanks."

"I've always heard that hot milk is—"

"Ugh," Harry made a face. "That stuff's nasty. Have you ever tasted it?"

"It's worse than Neelix's leola root casserole. How about chamomile tea?"

"I hadn't thought of that." He turned to the replicator. "Chamomile tea, hot."

The cup swirled into view, and they headed for a table.

"So, Maquis, what's keeping you up so late?"

A small smile curved her lips at Harry's use of his private nickname for her. "Homework," she said. "Captain's orders."

"Has it got anything to do with the Duplicate Project?"

B'Elanna nodded. "It seems that portions of my duplicate's personal logs survived the wreckage; the beacon was able to store them long enough for us to pick them up. And for Seven to read through most of them."

Harry's eyebrows rose. "I'll bet _that_ was a pleasant surprise."

B'Elanna laughed sharply. "You could say that. Anyway, Janeway assigned me to reading through all the entries and reporting anything of 'relevance' to her. And with the Captain—"

"—sooner is better."

"Right."

"So how's it coming?"

"Pretty well. I've gotten twenty-four out of forty-seven done, and so far nothing of significance. Well, I take that back. I—sorry, my duplicate mentioned a couple aliens we haven't come across yet, but she didn't say much about them. Just that one species looked like walking targs, and the other had the stupidest set of protocols—like, on Tuesdays, everyone has to walk backwards."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. Apparently, Captain Janeway—or her duplicate, rather—made the mistake of scheduling a mix-and-mingle affair on a Tuesday. From what I gathered, there were quite a few visits to Sickbay that evening."

"Let's hope that we don't run across those aliens. I, for one, am not very fond of walking backwards." Harry took a drink of his tea.

B'Elanna nodded. "Of course, it's not a problem for them, since they have eyes in the backs of their heads," she added wryly.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Well that explains it."

For awhile, silence reigned as they sipped their drinks. B'Elanna grabbed a mouthful of her drink and rolled the strong brew about her tongue, savoring its robust flavor. It had been a long time since she'd treated herself to _raktajino_. _I should do it more often_, she decided. Across from her, Harry finally seemed to be relaxing, unwinding from a long day of work.

"So," she began, "how's your end of the Project coming?"

"We've finished making copies of all the star charts; now all we have to do is upload them into Astrometrics and cross-reference them with our own charts. It looks like the duplicate _Voyager_s made it a lot farther than we did before they had to turn around."

B'Elanna nodded. "Probably has to do with the new warp drive they installed a few months after beginning their journey. It's similar to the quantum slipstream drive, from what I can tell. My duplicate didn't cross her work and personal life all that much—at least, not in the gritty details. Which makes sense, considering that she's exactly like me. Between the degradation and the lack of specs, I can't get a clear idea of how the thing works."

"Bummer."

A pause.

"What's the grapevine saying about all this? I was so busy trying to keep the ship in one piece today that I didn't pick up on any of the Engineering gossip."

Harry shrugged. "Wild rumors, as usual. I've heard things ranging from 'found a wormhole' to 'first contact with subspace fog' to 'news from home.' It's all pretty crazy, if you ask me. Probably from the junior bridge crew on duty when we found the beacon."

"Probably. Or maybe it was Tuvok."

Harry's eyes widened. "You know, I hadn't thought of that. It'd be just like him, too, spreading rumors of subspace fog and stable wormholes. You think we oughtta throw him in the Brig for ignoring the Captain's orders?"

They both laughed at that, trying unsuccessfully to imagine throwing the Vulcan chief of security into the Brig for spreading rumors.

"You know," B'Elanna gasped, wiping tears from her eyes, "that's the first time I've laughed—I mean, really laughed—in a long time. It felt…good. Surprisingly good."

Harry smiled. "I know." His twinkling black eyes told B'Elanna that his words held a deeper meaning than appeared on the surface. "Now, unless you have any objections, I'm heading to bed. I think that chamomile tea worked after all."

They rose and deposited their cups into the recycler, yawning as they went.

"I think I'll call it a night, too," B'Elanna sighed.

They parted at the doors, heading for separate 'lifts that would take them closest to their quarters.

" 'Night, Maquis."

She smiled. " 'Night, Starfleet. Sweet dreams."


	4. For the Better

Janeway looked up from her desk console as her ready room's door chime announced the presence of a visitor. Mentally, she ran through the list of scheduled officer reports, trying to determine who waited outside her door.

The morning had already seen Tuvok on security, Chakotay on crew assignments, and Neelix on food supplies. The next report would be Harry Kim on operations, and he wasn't slotted to arrive until 1400, well after the lunch hour. Janeway glanced at her desktop chronometer: 1204. Far too early for Ensign Kim.

So who waited on the other side of those doors?

_Well, there's only one way to find out._

"Door's open," she called, straightening her posture. It wouldn't do for her visitor to find the captain slouched like an inebriated fool in her seat. Janeway may be exhausted, but that didn't mean she could show it.

The doors whisked open to reveal _Voyager_'s chief engineer. Janeway smiled, leaning forward a bit. "B'Elanna, come in."

"Captain," the half-Klingon dipped her head and stepped into the room, allowing Janeway to see the padd in her left hand.

"I wasn't expecting your next report until tomorrow at least."

"I haven't finished all the entries yet, but here are the pertinent details from the next batch. I wasn't able to get much out of them—the degradation increases with the stardates."

Janeway accepted the proffered padd, and ran her eyes down the first page. "Any luck with pinpointing the type of enhancements they made to their warp core?"

B'Elanna shook her head. "No. Unfortunately, my duplicate really was exactly like me: she didn't mix her engineering and personal logs all that much. Maybe I should look into changing that…"

Janeway smiled, despite the disappointment weighing upon her. When B'Elanna had first theorized about the duplicate _Voyager_'s upgraded warp core three days ago, both Janeway and Harry had known better than to hope the engineer would be able to pull the necessary specs from the hodge-podge of log entries. Still, Janeway had let her enthusiasm get the best of her, and now she was suffering the consequences. _You'd think that after so many false alarms, I'd've learned to control myself by now._

"How many do you have left?" she asked. Maybe there was still hope.

"Four. I would've done them last night, but I fell asleep in the shower. I took that as a sign that I needed some sleep."

Janeway nodded, her hopes further deflating. Even if the duplicate Torres had spontaneously decided to devote an entire entry to the enhanced warp core, Janeway doubted they'd have enough information to construct one of their own.

Placing the padd on her desk, she said, "Perfectly acceptable, Lieutenant. Frankly, I'm impressed with your progress in so short a time. Not many chief engineers could find the time to make sense out of half-rotted log entries in so few days. Especially when their ship's stuck in the Delta Quadrant, in need of a dry-dock overhaul in the worst way."

A half-smile tugged at B'Elanna's lips, and the striking woman ducked her head at the compliment. "Believe me, Captain, I'll be glad to get them out of the way."

"I'm sure you will be. Was that all you needed?"

The engineer straightened. "Yes. I was actually on my way to the Mess Hall when I decided to drop the report by."

"By all means, then, dismissed! Don't let me keep you from your lunch," Janeway laughed. She could guess who awaited B'Elanna in the Mess Hall, but refrained from asking. She may be the captain, but she wouldn't unduly pry into her officers' lives.

As the doors concealed B'Elanna from view, Janeway reflected on how much her chief engineer had changed in the past five years. Where once there was a hostile, often violent terrorist, there now stood a competent, dependable officer. True, B'Elanna had had her rough spots, and, Janeway suspected, there would be plenty more in the years to come, but ultimately she was a capable young woman, worthy of Janeway's trust and, more often than not, her admiration.

_Yes, B'Elanna_, the Captain thought as she settled in to read the engineer's latest report, _you certainly have changed for the better._


	5. What am I going to tell Tom?

Of all the things she'd expected to find, this wasn't one of them.

B'Elanna stared at the words on the screen, her mind completely blank. Something told her she should be reacting—at least, in a way other than staring idiotically at the padd in her hand—but it was as if her brain had been wiped clean of all thought processes the second she read the words before her. The only coherent thought she could form was:

_How did I get here?_

After four days of muddling through butchered log entries that were B'Elanna's, but not really hers, it had all boiled down to disjointed words on a display screen.

And she was completely shocked.

_How did I get here?_

It happened on entry #47.

At 0923, half-asleep and ticked at the quadrant, B'Elanna had dragged herself to her quarters and collapsed on her bed—an hour and twenty-three minutes past her night shift had ended. Vorik, usually in charge of running the night shift, was down with a bad case of the Levodian flu, and Carey, the Vulcan's backup, had broken his leg falling down a diagonal Jefferies' tube two days before. Even with the help of the Doctor's osteo-regenerator, Carey would need a week of recovery. With sensitive, ongoing Engineering repairs, that left B'Elanna to head up the night watch. Never mind that she'd just spent the last ten hours working the day watch.

To describe the Klingon-human engineer as disgruntled would have been a gross understatement.

So, at 0923 hours, _Voyager_'s chief engineer had collapsed, exhausted, in her quarters, asleep before her head hit the pillow. When she finally awoke twelve hours later, B'Elanna had treated herself to a lengthy sonic shower and a replicated dinner. Then, in a somewhat better mood, she'd pulled out her duplicate's last surviving log entry and set to work.

That's when she saw them.

_Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me_—that's how the old Terran children's rhyme went, if B'Elanna's memory served her correctly. Over the years, despite invoking the words many times herself, both mentally and verbally, B'Elanna had found them to be utterly false.

Especially now.

_How did I get here?_

At last, B'Elanna's mind cleared, leaving her free to think, to analyze. No, that wasn't right. To feel. To _fear_.

Because these words terrified her.

She read them again.

—_proposed two mo[nths]—I was overwh[elmed.] He asked me if—would be [wi]lling to—vows. —must confess,—stiff at—baring my heart in [fro]nt of—people. B[ut] I love him, so—_ (large gap) _When I got past—[enco]untered another dile[mma]: How to— _(large gap)? _—been so hard to—he means to me—words. But—came up with this: "You stood by me when—run for the [n]earest airlock. You [were] willing—past my shortcomings, and take all the—bruises that—with it. You made me a better per[son]—_ (large gap) _—forward to our journey together." —[k]now that's hard[ly] adequate— _(large gap) _Wish—say "I love you, Tom" and—with it. Beca[use] I do, and that's— _(::END)

Proposed. Vows. Together. I love you. Tom.

_I married Tom? _No, no, that wasn't right. _My _duplicate_ married Tom. Tom's duplicate. _

Where had this come from? She'd seen no mention of Tom's proposal in the forty-six entries before. So why was it cropping up just now, with her marriage vows?

Surely it was all a mistake.

Yes, that had to be it. A mistake. Acute molecular degradation. A malfunction in the computer's processors. A glitch in the padd's displays. There was no way B'Elanna would have left Tom's proposal out of her personal log. Which meant that her duplicate wouldn't have, either.

A fluke.

It was as simple as that.

But then she remembered the stardates. Staving off a wave of panic, B'Elanna scrolled to the forty-sixth log entry, checked the incomplete stardate, and then thumbed quickly to the forty-seventh. She moaned. Enough of the numbers were there to tell her that several months spanned the interval between the last two entries.

Which meant that the entry detailing Tom's proposal had been lost in the degradation.

And suddenly, the marriage of the Paris and Torres duplicates didn't seem all that ludicrous after all.

B'Elanna moaned again. She didn't know what to think. She honestly didn't know what to feel, either. Joy? fear? excitement? sorrow? What should she throw herself into, Klingon passion and all? What emotion was stable enough to hold the intensity of her entire being? What was she _supposed_ to feel, knowing that an exact copy of B'Elanna Torres married an exact copy of Tom Paris?

B'Elanna didn't know.

And so she sat, staring, at the padd, reading and rereading the disjointed words.

Nearly thirty minutes passed in total, panicked silence. Then, just when she thought she'd fly apart from her mind being so blank (but not empty), a question charged her, cannoning into her like a shot of pure adrenaline.

_What am I going to tell Janeway?_

For several minutes, B'Elanna fought hyperventilation at the thought of telling her captain that she and Tom had gotten married. Wait, no, that wasn't right. Their _duplicates_ got married. Not the real Tom and B'Elanna.

But what difference did that make? They were still Tom and B'Elanna. Still the same people. Weren't they? Did the genetic make-up of one's body make them any different?

Of course it did. B'Elanna only had to look at herself as proof of that.

But when someone had the same memories, the same personality, the same visage, voice, style, and thought patterns, did it really matter whether they were bio-mimetic or non bio-mimetic?

"Ohhh," B'Elanna moaned, cradling her head in her arms. "I don't know. I can't know. How am I supposed…?" Her voice trailed away, and the question returned.

_What am I going to tell Janeway?_

_Wait a minute. _B'Elanna sat up. _What am I going to tell Janeway? Why the heck am I asking myself that? She said to report relevant facts. Anything beyond that she considered personal. And…if this isn't personal, I don't know what is._

She straightened, her anxiety fading quickly. Yes, that was it. She just wouldn't report this to Janeway. The oxygen suddenly flowed easily through her airways. Yes. She relaxed against the couch cushions. It was the perfect solution.

But what would she tell Tom?

* * *

><p>Next door, Crewman Lydia Anderson jumped and nearly dropped her tea as something crashed into Lieutenant Torres' side of the bulkhead. A frustrated roar followed immediately afterward, and, had Lydia not heard it a dozen times before, she would have marveled at its ability to rattle the doorframes.<p>

With a sigh of relief, Lydia shook her head and returned her attention to the padd in her hand. Her boss must have had a bad day. That was all.


	6. Cause for Concern

"Something wrong, Lieutenant?"

From across her ready room's desk, Janeway studied the young woman before her, wondering what had happened to lend her such a haggard appearance. The normally dynamic, snap-to-it engineer was now pale and silent, her arms crossed loosely and her weight listing to one side. Even her hair, which she normally kept brushed into a silken sheen, looked dull and unkempt. And her eyes—they were distant. Withdrawn. Like they'd been those first few weeks in the Delta Quadrant. That's what drew most of Janeway's concern.

Was her chief engineer reverting to her earlier ways?

Upon hearing her captain's voice, B'Elanna blinked and shifted her gaze to meet Janeway's. "Captain?" The older woman saw that B'Elanna had missed the connection between hearing and comprehending. Janeway set the padd in her hand aside and tried again.

"I asked if something was wrong. You don't look well."

B'Elanna glanced down, as if she could detect the source of Janeway's concern in her pants or boots, her hands dropping to her sides as she did. "No, Captain, nothing's wrong. I'm…fine."

"Oh," Janeway said, folding her hands onto her desk's smooth surface. "Okay. In that case, I'd like to discuss the latest night watch rotation. It's my understanding that you had to work a double shift the other night."

Janeway waited, but B'Elanna had slipped back into her lethargy. What was wrong with her? Maybe she was sick. Hadn't Vorik come down with some sort of flu a few days earlier? Janeway knew that B'Elanna worked an occasional gamma shift with the Vulcan ensign. Maybe she had caught it. The Captain's eyebrows knitted in concern.

"B'Elanna, are you sure nothing's wrong?"

Again, B'Elanna tore her gaze from the viewport to meet Kathryn's gaze. "I'm sorry, Captain. I…it's just been a long two days, and…I've got a lot on my mind."

"Considering the week you've had, I'm not surprised. Is there anything specific I should know about?"

Something akin to panic flashed across B'Elanna's brown eyes—the first sign of life Janeway had witnessed since ushering the woman into her office twenty minutes ago—and Janeway's internal alert sounded.

Was B'Elanna hiding something from her? Something dangerous, perhaps? Something in her duplicate's personal logs? But what? What could her duplicate possibly have done to warrant B'Elanna's hiding it from her?

_Voyager_'s chief engineer swallowed and crossed her arms across her chest. "No. It's…nothing. Just some things I need to work out."

"You're sure?"

B'Elanna straightened and lifted her chin. "Positive. Was there anything else you needed, Captain?"

"I was going to discuss a possible personnel change during Engineering's gamma shift, but I've decided it would be best to go over it with Commander Chakotay before carrying it any further. You can expect an update on it by the end of the week."

"Understood." She turned to leave—without dismissal, Janeway noticed. _Odd…it looks like I'll be discussing more than shift assignments with Chakotay._

"B'Elanna."

The woman turned, and again Janeway noticed the splash of worry coloring her eyes. "Yes, Captain?"

Janeway picked up the padd from her desk—the reason for B'Elanna's visit in the first place—and smiled, hoping to ease some of her engineer's anxiety. "Staff briefing at 1500. I think it's time we let the others in on our Duplicate Project."

B'Elanna nodded. "I'll be there." Then, she turned and left.

_I have no doubt you will be_, Janeway thought, turning her attention to the padd. _But why did you sound so frightened when you said it?_


	7. We Got Married

"B'Elanna!"

Tom's footsteps fell lightly on _Voyager_'s carpeted corridor as he jogged to catch up with B'Elanna. Seeing that she had no intention of stopping for him, Tom frowned and picked up his pace until he'd drawn abreast of her.

"Whoa, B'Elanna, slow down there," he laughed. "You're moving like an Andorian hurricane."

B'Elanna merely increased her speed, not even giving him a sideways glance. "I'm busy, Tom."

He lengthened his stride, long legs easily keeping up with B'Elanna's shorter, more rapid-fire ones. "No you're not. It's Friday, remember? Your shift ended ten minutes ago. So did mine."

"Well, I don't care. I've still got work to do."

"What work?" Tom pressed, testing the waters. Something was up with B'Elanna, and he wanted to know what it was.

"Any work. It doesn't matter. Just work."

Tom held in a sigh, resisting the urge to roll his eyes all the way to the Alpha Quadrant. Sometimes he wondered why he'd fallen in love with such a woman. Maybe half-Klingons were a little too out there. Even for him. But that's not what his heart told him.

Still clipping along at a pace that in Tom's book qualified as an ungainly trot, he tried a different tack. "So, been keeping secrets from me, eh?" He grinned at her, knowing she'd pick up on his jest.

Or maybe not. Tom's grin faded at the look crossing B'Elanna's face. "What are you talking about?"

If he hadn't know her better, Tom would have sworn that was panic he'd heard in her voice. But Klingons never panicked. And, half-human or not, B'Elanna Torres was no exception. "You know, the staff briefing. Project Duplicate."

Silence.

Tom frowned. Something was definitely up.

They rounded a corner, and Tom blinked at the breeze. Glancing at B'Elanna, he saw that her expression was a perfect study in neutrality. No anxiety. No panic. _Odd._ He tried again.

"Kinda funny that of all the _Voyager _crew, only your personal logs would survive, don't'cha think?"

"Nothing funny about it, Tom. I've spent the past six _days_ piecing those logs together, and for what? Nothing."

Tom frowned, wondering to what _nothing_ pertained. "So, what'd your duplicate have to say? Was she the same feisty B'Elanna, off breaking people's noses and decking unwelcome visitors?" Tom lowered his voice to a suggestive tease, elbowing B'Elanna in the ribs as he did. "And what about _my_ duplicate—she have anything…_interesting_ to say about him?"

B'Elanna just needed some old-fashioned ribbing. She'd eventually loosen up and laugh. And then Tom could convince her to dinner on the holodeck that night. Maybe he'd even get her into Sandrine's.

More silence.

Tom tossed a glance at B'Elanna and was startled to see her biting her lip. Hard. As if…Tom recognized the look and beat a hasty retreat.

"Relax, Bee. I was just joking."

"I'm not in the mood for jokes," she snapped, and turned the corner so sharply that Tom nearly dented the bulkhead to keep from plowing into her.

_No kidding_, he thought, and jogged a little to catch up with her. "Really, B'Elanna, what'd your duplicate have to say?"

"Nothing." Her answer was quick. Too quick.

"Now you don't honestly expect me to believe that, do you? Come on, she had to have said _something_. Otherwise—"

"Otherwise _what_, Tom? I told you, there was _nothing_."

Tom's eyebrows shot into his hairline. "My, aren't we touchy." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. B'Elanna swung around, fists clenched, and Tom's heart plunged through the deck plates. _I take them back; I swear, I take them back._

"Yes, I'm touchy today, Tom, and you know why? Because no one will _leave me alone_! That's all I'm asking for right now—to be _alone_. Utterly alone. Completely alone. _Blissfully_ alone. Without any problems to solve or impossibilities to sort through, or—" she waved a hand above her head, eyes blazing "—photon torpedoes dropping on my head from the middle of nowhere. Is that really too much to ask? Because everyone on this ship seems to think it is!"

With a parting growl, B'Elanna spun around and threw herself down the corridor, nearly running away from him. Tom gave her three seconds before chasing after her.

B'Elanna's outburst had hardly surprised him. Some subconscious part of him—the part that had known (and loved) B'Elanna and her Klingon temper for five years—had seen it coming and prepared accordingly for it. Over the years, he'd witnessed plenty of her explosions—the incident with Vorik and _Pon farr_ was a prime example—and, having born the brunt of many (Day of Honor, anyone?), had learned how to read them.

In this case, Tom knew that B'Elanna's anger had little to nothing to do with himself or anything he'd done. No, B'Elanna's primary target was herself. The question was, why?

He'd almost caught up with her. "B'Elanna, hold on a minute."

"I thought I told you to leave me alone."

"I just want to talk. Is that too much to ask?" Tom hoped that throwing her words back at her would gain B'Elanna's attention.

"Right now? Yes," she muttered, flying down the hallway.

"Okay," he said, easily keeping up with her. "Then I'll just follow you around until it's not."

B'Elanna stopped, pivoted, and fixed him with a glare that could kill. "Fine, Tom. What do you want?" she asked, folding her arms tightly against her chest. Tom ached to pry them loose and wrap B'Elanna in a hug. Anything to ease her obvious pain.

Because B'Elanna was in pain.

Tom could see that in her eyes, now that she faced him. They were shuttered, closed off, locked up so tightly that only he or Chakotay had any hope of getting in to comfort her. _Oh, B'Elanna, why do you do this to yourself?_

Tom softened his tone. "I just want to talk, Bee. Okay?"

"Talk? About what? What could there possibly be to talk about, Tom?" her voice was sharp, defensive, honed to a protective edge on the friction of her anger.

Despite his better judgment, Tom adopted an equally defensive tone. "Gee, I don't know. Maybe your day? The jokes Harry told me on our latest swing shift? The reason you're acting so defensively lately?"

"I'm _not_ acting defensively."

"Yes, you are. You're like a cornered targ, B'Elanna. What's wrong? Why won't you let me in?"

Something flashed across her eyes then. It was so fleeting that if Tom had blinked, he would have missed it. But he hadn't, and he saw it as clearly as he saw B'Elanna turning to leave before him. It galvanized him into action, and he reached to stop her. His hand on her shoulder made her pause, and before she could shake him off, Tom had turned her back around, facing him.

Exposing her.

"B'Elanna…" her name fell from his lips like a sigh, heavy and soft at once, and he ached to take her into his arms and soothe all her hurt away. But he knew she'd never allow that—not now, not here, in the middle of _Voyager_'s corridor, decks away from the safety of her quarters. So instead, he gripped her arms just below the shoulders, dipped his head to look deep into her tear-wet brown eyes, and asked, "What's wrong?"

For a nanosecond, her shining eyes pleaded with him to let her go, but then they fell, curtained, and she tried to wrench herself from his grasp.

Tom held on, knowing that she couldn't break his grip without throwing any punches and bringing unwanted attention. Again, she looked up at him, brown orbs begging, pleading. "Please…Tom, it's nothing. Let me leave!" She struggled harder. "Let me go!" she yelled, and brought her arm up.

"B'Elanna, stop. Tell me what's wrong. Please."

Suddenly, she stilled. Tom glanced down, trying to catch her eyes in his, to determine why she'd gone so rigid.

But he didn't have to.

She was staring at him, seemingly frozen, a battle raging inside her. Tom watched her eyes, taking in all that flashed across them in those brief moments of inward struggle.

Guilt. Fear. Uncertainty. Apprehension.

And finally, resignation.

Her lips parted, and as they did, a curtain descended over her eyes, effectively concealing from him whatever inward feelings she had on her pending confession. When she spoke, her voice was a whisper, thick with fear and something Tom couldn't define.

"We got married. Our duplicates got married."

For a moment, Tom stood in shocked silence, blue eyes wide. His momentary paralysis gave B'Elanna the chance she needed to escape, and escape she did. She slipped from his grasp and ran, tearing blindly down the corridor to the nearest turbolift, at last disappearing behind the metal doors.

The sight of B'Elanna's retreating figure freed Tom from the ice encasing him, and he ran three desperate steps. "B'Elanna!" he cried, wanting to call out so much more. "B'Elanna, wait!"

But it was too late. B'Elanna was gone.


	8. Tom's Bee

The Cardassian's eyes were chips of obsidian, made to seem even colder and more sinister by the reptilian ridges of bone hooking about his eye sockets. Shafts of pale, dusty light straggled through chinks in the cave roof and across his feral smile, turning his corpse-like visage into a grotesque mockery of death. His neck ridges were wide and scooped inward, serving as channels for his sweat, and his scent rolled across her in waves, rising and spreading to the cave's walls and ceiling, only to bounce, shimmering, back to envelope her, reeking of sweat, adrenaline, and—yes. Her Klingon blood ran hot with the realization:

_Fear!_

She circled her opponent warily, arms crooked stiffly and fingers clawed in the traditional Klingon _Mok'bara_ stance, eyes never wavering from his, yet still observing every subtle flinch, every twitch, every movement he made, knowing that when he struck he would be swift, sure, and if by surprise, deadly.

Of course, she'd left the safeties on, having long ago had her share of extreme risk and the consequences it brought. Those long months of nothingness had more than taught her their lesson, and never again would she risk everything she had in something as fake as a holodeck.

But now, in the heat of the moment, with the adrenaline flowing as freely as blood through her body, her opponent only seconds away from attacking, B'Elanna's life might as well have been at stake.

That's how real it felt.

The soldier's moonless eyes flickered almost imperceptibly, and he lunged. He was over two meters tall, thick as a mature _tryb'aen _tree, and quick as the viper he resembled.

But she was quicker.

Using her small, compact build to her advantage, B'Elanna let the Cardassian's formidable weight carry him forward until his club-like arm was a breath away from knocking her senseless. Then, in one fluid, feline movement, she ducked under his arm and deflected his weight onto her shoulders, allowing his momentum to carry him over into a clumsy somersault. His neck snapped, and his torso collided with the cave floor in a thunderous _whump_. Seconds later, he glimmered transparent and fizzled into oblivion.

"Computer," she panted, tossing her hair from her eyes with the instinctual movements of a warrior, "increase program difficulty to level three."

Another opponent buzzed into view, this one even thicker than the last, and brandishing a club. Once again, they circled, each eyeing the other with a mistrust born of violence and betrayal. This time, though, she struck first, taut muscles uncoiling like springs wound too long and tightly.

Before he knew what was happening, the Cardassian's club had plunked into the dust, and he found himself weaponless, facing a grim, dust-streaked, and entirely determined half-Klingon. He hissed with the pleasure of combat; flames licked wildly at her brown eyes.

He charged her, and in a dance of pure instinct, she ducked, slid sideways, and straightened behind him with a defiant snap of her chin. He wheeled, a feat one might have considered impossible for a man his size, and landed a stinging blow across her cheek.

Enraged, she darted forward, and her bare arm _thumped_ solidly against the blackened shell of his armor. She grunted as a dull throb spread throughout the bones in her lower arm. Holodeck safeties could shield her from phaser blasts, weapons that drew blood, and blows that broke bone, but that was where the invisible field of protection stopped. She couldn't say she was disappointed, either. The ache stoked the fire already burning within her, and she whirled, sending a sharp elbow into his gut, just below and to the left of his breastplate's pointed terminus.

The move was successful, and the Cardassian doubled over, the sudden ballooning of pain knocking the air from his lungs. Straightening, she brought her elbows together, knotted her fingers into a fist, and prepared to deliver a blow to his exposed neck. Before she could complete the motion, however, she felt her legs buckle and fly sideways, and she fell heavily to her side. A cry escaped her lips as her elbow cracked against her hip, but the pain only fueled her anger. Leaping to her feet, she grappled with her opponent for a long minute before an upward thrust of her shoulder crushed his jaw and sent him crashing to the ground.

He soon went the way of his predecessor.

Panting, B'Elanna spread her feet and planted her hands on her thighs, bending so as to allow the blood to return to her head. Her vision cleared quickly, and she opened her mouth to increase the program difficulty once more. Just as she did, her eyes fell to her left hand. She froze. And then she uttered a particularly dark phrase in Klingon.

Was there no escaping it?

B'Elanna straightened, slowly bringing her hand closer to her face. It remained. Despite her frustration, B'Elanna stared, transfixed. A palely golden band of light rested across her ring finger, forced into its shape by a chink in the cave's ceiling.

It was the perfect imitation of a wedding band.

Even as B'Elanna gazed at the ring of light, she willed her eyes to close, to block the unwelcome reminder from view, hoping that the old adage _out of sight, out of mind_ would rally behind her and prove itself true.

But it was no use; B'Elanna was mesmerized.

And as she stood there, a grimy, irritated half-Klingon held captive by a single band of dusty light, B'Elanna Torres found herself wondering what it would be like to be the wife of Tom Paris.

Would she change her name, take his in place of her absent father's? _B'Elanna Paris._ She rolled the name around in her mind. It didn't sound all that bad, actually. She rather liked it. Of course, it would present a problem whenever someone tried to comm her. And first contacts with new species would prove a little tricky, as well, since there would be _two_ Lieutenants Paris to introduce.

No, that wasn't true, B'Elanna remembered, the familiar bitterness welling inside her. Tom was _Ensign_ Paris, now, not _Lieutenant_ Paris, thanks to an overreaction on the part of _Voyager_'s captain. But B'Elanna had no doubts that he would earn back that second pip in no time, causing a logistical difficulty. That was her Tom, all right. Fun-loving troublemaker all around. She smiled at the thought.

And just as quickly, she wiped the happy expression from her face.

B'Elanna Paris? Her Tom? What business had she in fantasizing such things? She, marry Tom Paris? The idea was ludicrous. Insane, crazy, nothing short of ridiculous. How could someone as bright and good-looking as Tom truly fall in love with _her_, a half-Klingon?

B'Elanna bit her lip, fighting back the tears in her eyes. How could she have let herself grow so weak? She'd lulled herself into a sense of false security, talked herself into believing that Tom really could love her. Really did see past the hideous ridges on her forehead to the person she was beneath. Really believed that she was beautiful just the way she was, Miss Turtlehead and all. What a lie. What a crazy, fragile lie.

Tom could never love her. Not the way she longed to be loved.

Unconditionally, without prejudice, totally and loyally and truly. Loved for who she was, not for what she had done or who she might become with the right manipulating or breaking or persuading. Loved because the one who loved her had been _made_ for her, _meant_ to be hers and wholly hers. _Destined_ to fall deeper and deeper in love with her every day of his life.

No one could love B'Elanna that way.

Especially not Tom.

He deserved better. Much better.

Her hand fell to her side, the band slipping from her finger as easily as water off a dolphin's back. There one minute, gone the next. Just like that.

B'Elanna felt the loss in the core of her being.

Against every shred of Klingon pride she possessed, B'Elanna sank to her knees and wept. It wasn't loud weeping, excessive and showy and begging for attention. Nor was it weak weeping, pale and trembling and meant to garner pity.

Instead, it was quiet weeping, the weeping of a wounded little girl.

A girl who'd watched as her father walked away from her, and her mother succumbed to a kind of Klingon rage that manifested itself in a proud bearing and relentless devotion to her heritage. A girl who'd longed to hear her father call out, _"Where's my Little Bee?" _just once more, or feel her mother's arms stroking her back, and that strong, proud, Klingon voice soften with love as it said, _"I love you, my little 'Lanna."_

A girl who'd grown into a restless teenager, and that teenager into a struggling Starfleet cadet, and that cadet into a 19-year-old dropout who believed she'd never be accepted and blamed it all on her cursed forehead.

An Academy dropout, who, with the help of a quiet, fiercely loyal man named Chakotay, had become a member of the Maquis. A Maquis, who, under the Starfleet label of terrorist, had slowly found a place where she was accepted, and the ridges of her heritage were virtually ignored. A place that a wounded little girl could call home.

Only to have it ripped away by Starfleet.

And then, miraculously, an ex-Maquis who'd found a home on _Voyager_. A home that had everything she'd ever dreamed of—a ship she knew better than the lines of her face, a captain she could trust, the mentor who'd saved her life, friends she trusted with both her life and her laughter. And greatest of all, the man who through all his mistakes and grievances and perpetual, wisecracking smiles, had shown her what life was all about.

Tom.

_Tom._

Something deep inside her cried out his name, and she longed to believe it was true. That Tom really did love her, that she really was beautiful to him, that no one could ever capture his heart the way she had. That he was hopelessly, inextricably, and blissfully in love with her.

Tom. Oh, Tom. How she longed to believe it.

"_I just want to talk, Bee."_

B'Elanna blinked, tears sliding down her cheeks. What had he called her? What was the name that had slipped so gently from his lips just hours ago in the hallway? _Bee._ He'd called her Bee.

Just like he'd done for the past three months, she realized.

Bee.

And she'd let him.

B'Elanna eased back on her heels, hands resting limply on her legs. After her father had left, no one had called her Little Bee, or even Bee. No form of John Torres' pet name for his daughter had been allowed to leave the lips of those around her. She hadn't wanted the reminder. It stirred memories in her that she longed to forget, and no nickname, no matter how much she longed to hear it, was going to loose them to their torments.

And so, John Torres' Little Bee had died the day he walked out the front door, never to return.

But here Tom was, calling her Bee, and B'Elanna had hardly thought anything of it. For three months, now, she'd smiled at the endearment, feeling her brown eyes dance and her heart melt whenever the syllable left his lips. More often than not, she'd kissed those lips after hearing that name.

And after she'd sworn never to accept it again.

A tear, now cold, dropped to her hand, and B'Elanna reached to touch her forehead. The skin of her fingers explored the arcs, valleys, and peaks of her ridges, for the first time truly wanting to know what they felt like _as a part of her_. Not as some foreign, thrice-cursed punishment to her otherwise stunning visage.

But as a part of the woman called B'Elanna Torres.

Was it true? she wondered, her curious fingers rippling across her brow. Did Tom really love her? Was there a chance—even the slimmest of ones—that their future together held marriage?

"_I've decided that I need a nickname for you. Harry calls you Maquis, so that's taken. You'll kill me if I call you—actually, on second thought, I won't tell you the others I've thought of. That's leaves me with a whopping zero choices. Guess I'll have to put my thinking cap on for this one. What, you've never heard of a thinking cap? Sheesh, B'Elanna, I've got to—oh, never mind. How about…Bee. Yeah, I like it. What do you think?"_

She smiled at the memory. That had been the first time he'd called her Bee, and she'd never once thought of the way her father had come home from work, dropped his lab coat, loosened his tie, and called out in a silly voice for his Little Bee to come give him a hug. Or how she'd giggled and shrieked with delight whenever he'd swept her into his arms and tickled her with his beard, all the while exclaiming, _"That's my Little Bee!"_ Or even how she'd cried herself to sleep every night for months after his abandonment, wishing to hear those words spill from his beloved lips just once more.

"_Relax, Bee. I was just joking…Hey, Bee! How's the night shift been treatin' ya? Broken any noses?…B'Elanna will whip you for sure—I've been training her. She actually knows which end of the cue you use to hit the ball, now. No, I'm serious. Right, Bee?…I just want to talk, Bee."_

Memory after memory of Tom's using the nickname poured through her mind, and they all told her the same thing.

She trusted Harry enough for the name Maquis to have become a sign of friendly affection, a way to lighten the mood or say, "You're always there for me when I need you. Thanks." Hearing Harry call her _Maquis_ made her smile, and reminded her how lucky she was to have someone as incredibly loyal as Harry Kim as her friend.

Obviously, she trusted Tom even more to have let him call her Bee for this long without even realizing the implications. In fact, B'Elanna knew that she more than trusted Tom. She _loved_ him. Every goofy, grinning, monochrome, leather-jacket-clad inch of him.

And he loved her right back, tempestuous Klingon genes and all.

She was Bee. Tom's Bee.

And now she had to act on it.


	9. Come What May

**Disclaimer:** I do not own or claim to own the lyrics found at the end of the song. They're from "All the Way," and respectfully accredited to the songwriter(s). Full disclaimer for it found in my DS9 fic, "All the Way." Enjoy! (And please review!)

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><p>If it were physically possible, Tom would have kicked himself to pieces by now. It had been nearly thirty hours since B'Elanna's flight from him in the corridors of Deck 1, and he still hadn't worked up the nerve to track her down.<p>

At first, he'd told himself she just needed time alone, time to sort things through and come to grips with what the "photon torpedo from nowhere" meant to her. Goodness knows _he_ needed the time. He hadn't even known about the Duplicate Project, as Janeway's need-to-know team had termed it, until twenty minutes before B'Elanna's confession. To say the news had surprised him was one of the Seven Understatements of Thomas Eugene Paris's Life.

But being surprised didn't necessarily translate into being upset.

No, the more Tom thought about the idea of his duplicate marrying B'Elanna's, the more he liked it. And the more plausible it sounded.

After all, he loved B'Elanna. Loved her like he'd never loved any girl—or woman—before. In fact, since he'd started courting B'Elanna in earnest—after her tearful, quite literally breathless admission on the Day of Honor so long ago—Tom had come to realize that he'd never truly _loved_ anyone before B'Elanna.

Not romantically, anyway.

Sure, he loved his family, current non-relations with his father notwithstanding, and, ridiculous as it may have sounded to some, he loved _Voyager_ and the _Delta Flyer_. As much as anyone could love humming, temperamental chunks of metal, anyway.

But when it came to women, Tom now knew that he'd never loved. It had all been…lust. The admission made him wince and try to shove away all the questionable memories clinging to it. He was a different man than the one who had stepped onto _Voyager_'s bridge nearly six years ago. One that wasn't proud of his past before _Voyager_.

Funny that it had taken a mercurial, cranky half-Klingon to show him that. _Correction_, he thought. _B'Elanna showed me. _

To Tom, there was a difference.

He thought again of the emotions playing across B'Elanna's face in the moments before she told him of their duplicates' marriage. The guilt. The fear. The uncertainty. The apprehension. But guilt from what? Fear of what? Why the uncertainty and apprehension? What caused them to darken the liquid brown of her eyes into a tumultuous sea of black? Tom didn't know.

But he could make a pretty good guess. And that guess made his heart ache for her, because he knew how much torture B'Elanna must be putting herself through because of this bizarre revelation.

"_We got married. Our duplicates got married."_

How softly she'd whispered those words to him, her lips barely moving, her eyes swathed in a protective curtain even he couldn't penetrate. And he'd just stood there like a brainless idiot, letting the shock parade across his face for B'Elanna to see, to misinterpret.

To run from.

It wasn't that marrying B'Elanna repulsed him, as he was certain she'd taken his stunned expression to say. He didn't see her as others in her past surely had—as an exotic plaything to amuse him until he grew bored and tossed her aside like an outdated holonovel, in search of the quadrant's latest fad. Nor did he see her as a piece of property, something to put on display and brag about to every new species he crossed paths with.

Tom knew those conclusions for what they were. Lies. Cruel, twisted, hurtful lies. And he resented them with every fiber of his being.

He knew, deep inside his aching heart, that some part of B'Elanna Torres—whether large or small, it didn't matter—believed these lies, and had fled from them as surely as she had fled from his touch thirty hours before. Why else would she have resisted his questions about the Duplicate Project for so long? What else could have splattered her face with fear, tensed her steps with uncertainty, and choked her words with apprehension?

Tom clenched his hands into fists, mentally cursing his stupidity. He should go to B'Elanna, find her and take her in his arms and make her understand that he loved her, and always would love her, until the day he breathed his last.

Yet, here he was thirty hours later, no closer to telling B'Elanna that marriage wasn't as impossible as she thought it was.

His combadge chirped, and Tom sighed so heavily that he nearly fell to the floor. His eyes closed in utter exhaustion, his hands rising to cover them. He'd gone off-duty hours ago, and the last thing he needed right now was to be called in for an emergency, or even some trivial discrepancy in the _Flyer_'s power systems. Why couldn't he just sink through the deck plates and disappear for a few days?

Shore leave. He needed shore leave.

_::Neelix to Ensign Paris.::_

Ensign. The designation ate at him, tired as he was, and Tom bit his lip to keep from exploding at the well-meaning Talaxian cook. _Lieutenant Paris!_ he wanted to shout. _Lieutenant, not ensign! Why can't I do something right for just once in my life? Why am I always the misfit, the mess-up, the vagabond and miscreant and chronic failure?_

And all that stemmed from a single word.

Ensign.

Sighing again—this time in disgust—Tom slapped his badge. "Paris here. Whaddya need, Neelix? If it's something about work—"

"No need to worry, Tom. I just need you to come up to the Mess Hall for a few minutes. There's something I need to discuss with you, about—well, I'd rather not say," Neelix mumbled over the line. "You never know who's eavesdropping."

Tom rubbed his gritty eyes. Then he grimaced; it felt as if his hands were made of sandpaper. "Sheez, I've got to get some sleep." Suddenly remembering he was on an open channel, he bolted upright and headed for the door. "Sorry Neelix. It's been a long day. I'll be there in five minutes, 'kay?"

"Perfect."

The doors to his quarters _hissed_ open, and Tom stepped through. Glancing down at his outfit, he hesitated for a split second, then shrugged and headed for the nearest turbolift. It was past 2100—he could show up in the Mess Hall in pajamas, for all he cared. Civvies and sock-clad feet hardly made a difference to him.

As he made his way to the nearest 'lift, Tom noted the unusual silence in the corridors. Practically no one was out and about this hour—they were either at their various posts throughout the ship or holed away in their quarters, getting some valuable shut-eye. Ohh, that sounded divine.

Tom shook his head and stepped into the 'lift. "Deck two," he said. He wouldn't think about sleep. Not until Neelix was done briefing him on…whatever it was he wanted to talk about. Tom thought hard, but his tired brain couldn't come up with any important dates on the calendar. No birthdays, no holidays, no One-Year-Blah-Blah-Blah anniversaries to plan parties for. Maybe the Talaxian just wanted to share the latest gossip with him.

"I sure hope not," he muttered, dragging in a breath. Neelix could go on for hours about _Voyager_'s mostly inaccurate grapevine. In fact, the only person who could give him a run for his latinum was the Doctor. And that was saying something.

The 'lift hummed to a stop, and as he stepped into the corridor, Tom realized he hadn't eaten dinner yet. _Maybe I'll get lucky and Neelix'll have some leftovers warming as midnight snacks. Of course, the word _leftovers_ is synonymous with Most Definitely Inedible, these days, so maybe not…_

His thoughts trailed away, and he walked into what had once been the Captain's Galley, now imaginatively dubbed the Mess Hall. The lights were dimmed, and from his position by the doors, Tom couldn't see half the room. His boyish—okay, well, his _dominant_—side made him grin and reference half a dozen "spooky" movies he'd devoured over the years, and he strode forward, head turning this way and that in search of Neelix.

"Hey, Neelix, old buddy, I'm here. Where'd you run off to?" Hearing puttering in the kitchen, Tom turned his steps there.

Rounding the corner, though, his attentions were immediately directed elsewhere. All thoughts of the furry cook fled his mind as his eyes took in the scene before him.

At first, he couldn't believe it. It couldn't be—not after yesterday, and certainly not after he'd failed to apologize within twenty-four hours of the incident. Then, when his sleep-deprived, hunger-impaired, stressed-beyond-words brain registered the sight before him as something slightly more believable than an hallucination, his first thought was, _Oh crap. I'm in socks._

In what Tom would later describe as Quite Possibly the Most Romantic Evening of My Life, B'Elanna sat facing him, at a table for two, candlelight flickering softly against the honeyed tan of her skin. The wavering flames bathed the deep red of her dress in velvety shadows, taking what would be striking on her in normal lighting to jaw-dropping. Her hair was brushed so smoothly that it looked like satin, and it shone russet in the soft light of the tapered candles. And was that—? Yes, yes it was. She'd woven that single, small braid down the left side of her face. The braid that he'd been crazy about, and that she'd sworn she'd never wear again because it kept falling out. Tom began to suck in a breath, but all nonessential body functions—such as respiration and circulation—ceased the second his eyes met hers.

They were soft, liquid, two pools of ink, with candle flames dancing as torches in the dead of night. His delirious brain was working overtime in the poetic department, but Tom didn't care. Shining, like stars thrown across the ebony canvas of space, they beckoned to him, and told him that, whatever this was about, he needn't be afraid. Or worried about coming majorly underdressed.

"B'Elanna…" he breathed, seemingly frozen in place. "What…?"

She smiled, a smile that threatened to drive him insane with its beauty, and rose. In some rogue part of his body that wasn't literally mesmerized by the sight before him, Tom glanced down, past the calf-length swirl of her dress and to the floor, where he was absurdly relieved to find—

Bare feet.

"Someone told me you hadn't eaten yet, _Mr._ Paris," she said, her teasing voice like music to his ears.

Her hand slipped into his, and he felt himself being pulled forward, toward the table, the chairs, the candles. B'Elanna.

_B'Elanna._

They'd reached the table, and, like a lame-brained idiot, he'd let her pull out his chair before he snapped out of it. Accepting his already numerous flub-ups as irrevocable, Tom waited until B'Elanna had taken her seat before occupying his.

"I take it our plan was a success?" Tom jumped as Neelix's voice sounded behind him. He'd forgotten all about his initial purpose in visiting the Mess Hall.

"I couldn't have asked you to do better, Neelix," B'Elanna grinned. "I owe you one."

Tom furrowed his brow and darted a look between B'Elanna and the cook. "Am I correct in assuming that you two are in cahoots together?"

"Who, me?" Neelix asked, fingers splayed innocently across his fireworks show of an apron. B'Elanna merely clapped a hand over her mouth and stifled what Tom would have sworn was a giggle. _When have I ever heard B'Elanna giggle?_ he wondered.

Breaking into a smile that strangers would call positively frightening, Neelix rubbed his hands together and leaned toward the table, his amber eyes wide and expressive. "The food will be ready in just a few minutes. B'Elanna, I'll bring it out whenever you're ready."

B'Elanna nodded and winked (_She's never done that, either!_ Tom marveled), and Neelix disappeared into his beloved kitchen.

"Now," Tom said, once they were alone, "what's this all about? I thought _I_ was supposed to be the one throwing a candlelight dinner and dressing to the nines at 2100 hours."

A soft smile tugged B'Elanna's lips, and she merely watched him for a long two minutes. Then, she said, "This is about us."

"Us?" Tom swallowed. Could she possibly have gone to all this trouble just to break up with him? No, he decided. B'Elanna definitely wasn't the type to turn a break-up into some sort of sick celebration.

"Us," she repeated, and fell silent once more. Watching her eyes, though, Tom knew that she had more to say. Much more. And so he waited.

Her lips parted, but no words came forth. Tom let his gaze slide up to hers once more, and he found there such a vast array of feelings that he felt he'd drown in them.

Love, joy, fear, tenderness, vulnerability, guilt, hesitation, uncertainty, caution, determination—they all rolled over him, like a giant wave coming to claim him.

And yet, through it all, he sensed a profound peace emanating from B'Elanna. A peace regarding what she was about to do, the decision she'd made in the hours prior to this meeting. A peace he'd never sensed from her before. Ever.

"Bee, what is this about?"

She smiled then, a delighted, sparkly-eyed smile. All the uncertainties and hesitation seemed to seep from her limbs and puddle onto the floor with that smile. A ripple of laughter spilled from her throat, and she regarded him with a love so strong that he could barely believe this was happening.

"This is about us," she breathed. "You and me. It's about duplicates and wedding rings and holodecks and Cardassians, and vows and love and—" she paused, breathless, "—and Bee."

"Whoa, whoa, B'Elanna, slow down. You lost me after duplicates," he laughed, her excitement contagious.

She drew a deep breath, closing her eyes as she did so. When she opened them, Tom saw that she was ready to tell him everything. They were shining and steady, more peaceful than he'd ever known them to be.

"When I first read that log entry—the one that told me our duplicates got married—I didn't know what to think. I was…" she bit her lip. "I was scared, and then I was happy, and just as quickly I was mad at Janeway for assigning me to the project. Then, I wanted to destroy the entry, because I couldn't fathom the thought of telling Janeway—or _you_, for that matter—about the marriage. It just seemed…"

"Too bizarre?" he offered, hoping he hadn't ruined the evening.

"Exactly. I mean…how often does one come across an exact copy of oneself?"

Tom grinned impishly. "With this crew? You never know."

B'Elanna scowled at him, but it was only half-hearted. "You know what I mean. Anyway, after you chased me down in the corridor, I was terrified. I just—" she stopped, suddenly unable to continue. The fear was back, darkening her eyes and freezing her limbs. Tom waited, willing his eyes to convey his love and support.

Just as suddenly as it had come, the fear left, and determination flooded her expression. When she spoke, her words tumbled out on top of each other, as if she was afraid they'd disappear before she had the chance to voice them. "I just knew that your reaction meant you'd never dream of marrying me, and that the idea was disgusting to you. I told myself that I'd tricked myself into believing my own lies, and that I was a fool for ever thinking you could love me."

"B'Elanna—"

"It was a lie, Tom. I know that," she cried, leaning against the table's edge, as if pleading with him to understand. "I realized it when I was in the holodeck yesterday, running the caves simulation." She saw his look and quickly shook her head. "No, I didn't turn the safeties off. I was catching my breath, when I looked down and…and there it was."

He listened as she told the story of the imitation wedding band, and the feelings it had stirred in her. Of her dreams, her denial, her dejection, and then of her revelation regarding his nickname for her.

_Bee_, he marveled. _Who would have thought it'd all come down to a single syllable? I'm going to call her that for the rest of our lives._

She finished, and the silence hung between them. At last, he found the words to ask his only question. "So…what does this mean—for us?"

B'Elanna remained silent for a moment more, and then she rose, walked behind him, and dragged his chair back from the table. Before he could ask what she was doing, she'd settled herself on his lap, arms resting comfortably around his shoulders.

She gazed deep into his eyes, right down to the most secret corner of his heart, and took a deep breath. "I _love_ you, Thomas Eugene Paris, and—_someday_, I hope that that love will lead me to pledge my life to you."

"But for now?" he whispered, hardly daring to breathe.

"For now…let's just take it one step at a time."

He smiled. "Come what may."

"What?" B'Elanna looked confused.

"Come what may. You said 'one step at a time,' and it reminded me of the words to an old song I once heard."

"How does it go?" she asked, tilting her head.

Tom closed his eyes and searched his memory. "_Through the good or lean years, and for all the in between years—come what may_," he sang softly, reaching up to brush her hair back from her face. "_Who knows where the road will lead us? Only a fool would say._" He paused, suddenly feeling foolish.

"Keep going," she smiled sillily, kissing his nose. "I like it when you sing."

"Really?" he raised his eyebrows, his fingers reaching to undo the braid in her hair. "I thought you hated it."

Too late, B'Elanna realized what he was doing and swatted his hand aside. "Hey!" she growled, but a smile had already begun to creep across her lips. "I spent half an hour trying to get that thing to stay in—just for you—and now look what you've done!"

"Uh, Neelix!" Tom shouted over his shoulder. "I think we're ready to eat! Pronto!"

"Not so fast, flyboy," B'Elanna laughed, pulling his head back around. And then, before he had time to worry about her revenge on her ruined braid, she kissed him soundly, breaking away only when her laughter proved too great to contain.

Tom soon joined her, and the moment was one he vowed never to forget, as long as he drew breath into his lungs.

Dinner came with Neelix's signature flourish, and as he ate, staring across the table into those dancing brown eyes he so loved, the final lines of the song he'd been singing to B'Elanna ran through his head.

_But if you'll let me love you, it's for sure I'm gonna love you—all the way, all the way._

And he would.

Come what may.


End file.
